15 – Jungleland
Clubs like ours, and many across the land, perform a valuable service to their communities for a large part of the year by taking otherwise dangerous people off the streets; those that might otherwise roam shopping centres, frequent pubs and even be let loose in a car somewhere are given shelter and a purpose through the great game of cricket. We offer them somewhere to go, something to do and provide fencing and a secure gate. Plus, at the end of day the numbing effects of a gallon of fizzy beer are on offer and very rarely refused, although what accelerating impact to the numbing process really takes place on some of them is debatable.
Dirty Den
I’ve enjoyed the company of many of these characters over the years, but perhaps the one that really flew over the cuckoo’s nest, so to speak, was Denis “Dirty Den” Wood. He rolled up some time in the early 80s a crouched, five-foot-tall, with wispy white hair, bushy eyebrows and a manic stare as he flicked the ball from hand to hand in the manner that top class spin bowlers love to do – except Denis was playing for Villas not England. Had he been discovered a few years later he would have been great in the Harry Potter films as a mad little wizard.
He bowled variations of leg spin that Shane Warne could only dream of; that was at least when the ball pitched and that’s not including pitching in the gardens surrounding the ground as it frequently did. Den’s added value to the team was that he was absolutely useless with the bat, which is a captain’s dream, in that at least one slot in the batting order was sorted without debate most weeks or any danger of offending the said batter’s wife.
Boris The Rottweiler
My early relationship with Den was put under some strain by a confession he made after one pint too many of the vile Grunhalle lager that the club served in those days. As Greenalls was the only brewery daft enough to lend us any money to fund our new clubhouse, we had to drink what they gave us and Grunhalle was at best a down market Skol if anybody can remember Skol? At it is worst it generally ensured we did not need to buy bleach for the toilets.
Now Den had a big, nasty Rottweiler named Boris and he brought him to each and every game. Boris’s twin purposes in life were to guard Den’s twenty-year-old, orange Lada Estate (as if anybody would try to nick that even in Bradford) and scare the crap out of everybody else. The Lada came in handy because Den worked at the local sauce and pickle factory and would turn up each week with crates of brown sauce and pickled onions which came in great for stuffing in various team mates batting gloves and watching them fish them out as they got to the wicket. If you inserted them at the end of the last game of the season anything could be growing by the time April came round again.
Boris and the Credit Crunch
Boris though had a dark secret, long before the term credit crunch was ever heard of; he had a personal loan and with the company I worked for. When Den discovered that I worked for Mercantile Credit, he sheepishly explained that he had applied for a personal loan, years ago in Boris’s name and, amazingly, had been accepted; I could not believe it. True we dealt with the local motor trade – only one level above the mafia in terms of scruples – but a loan to a dog? Surely Den had overdosed on the Grunhalle?
Monday morning I scurried to the office in my Ford Escort 1.3 Popular – I’d yet to hit the big time – and frantically fired up the computer and lo and behold there it was, Mr B Wood, with a very good payment record I might add. Sadly, Boris died before the loan was paid off – although eventually it was, so we never had to chase arrears from a dead dog but I was minded to suggest that our Payment Protection Plan might have been a good idea – especially as no medical was needed and imagine the claim for compensation for mis-selling all these years later?
‘Er Indoors
Den became a legend at the club and taught me many things, but I never needed to put into practice his best trick…how to fool the wife. This was light years before Molly took this art form to another level applying for a Government funded Doctorate. When rain stopped play for the day, Den was faced with the prospect most sporting men dread…going home to the wife. So he came up with an ingenious plan, which involved rubbing his whites outside on the grass and sprinkling them with water to resemble sweat although nobody ever witnessed Den work up a sweat. The fact that his gear stank anyway enhanced the aura of industry and toil.
With his gear soiled, he was free to imbibe for the rest of the day and, being the team-nominated-driver in the orange Lada Estate, he was extremely popular. Okay so we were young and reckless and somewhat uncaring that a deliriously drunk madman was driving us around Bradford in the nearest thing to an orange Russian tank. How dangerous could it be: the thing was so bulky it would have taken out an ocean liner. If only they had them in Afghanistan the Taliban would not stop running especially if a drunken Den was driving with Boris mounting the gun turret.
The Idiocy of Tempting Fate
Den’s finest hour, albeit not strictly cricket-related, began on one of these nights. Under the dominating influence of ten pints of Grunhalle he declared that if his then fourteen-year-old son Nigel ever scored a fifty – top score at that time eleven – then he would walk to the wicket and strip naked as the day he was born; how fate can stuff you in the nuts. Next day Nigel swiped a glorious fifty for the Under Fifteens – his very first and very last before he became a chef – and as the day coincided with an afternoon cup match the post match entertainment was as good as we have ever seen.
After several courage-building Grunhalles, Den sidled off into the toilets of our luxury prefabricated clubhouse declaring that the time had come. Next we saw him walking slowly to the wicket and then he stopped; off came his shoes and then at every few paces he began to shed more. Old Vera Nicholson, ashen-faced at her window, did not live long after the event. As Den approached the wicket, his arms went up in triumph as he twirled joyously naked for all to see. I swear the roof nearly came off the building just about the moment that Duck, having tracked him to the wicket like a lion, sank his teeth into Den’s bony, white backside.
Dogs of Yesteryear
Boris though is not the only famous dog to have graced Villas; Indeed, most people who know me would claim that I’ve brought along enough in my time to populate Crufts. However, there have been some much-loved pets along the way…of the four-legged kind.
Whisky
Whisky was the much loved collie dog of Ken and Olga and would sit in her rightful spot in the club every night alongside her owners who would be sat in their rightful spots. When Ken sadly passed away I forgot to suggest that we should have buried him with the velour patch of seating he had occupied for so long together with a pint glass of Greenall’s Local Bitter.
Now Ken liked a beer or two but often it was Olga who would set a furious pace, shooing Ken to the bar for a fill up. Olga drank lager, which being dearer was another source of irritation to Ken and God forbid she ever asked for a treat and a splash of lime. Even though Ken and Olga lived close to the ground, they always drove to the club as they felt safer, which was more can than be said of the punters that Ken weaved past on the way home on many moonlit nights.
On warm summer evenings, Whisky liked to sit outside and Ken would moor her to his brown Morris Marina. This particular night Olga had been downing them at a rapid pace and Ken, fearing he might have to perform later that night, kept pace, hoping to collapse peacefully like most men do. As they got into the car their thoughts were of only one thing…how to drive the old thing back.
Off they set, and then after the second speed bump had been negotiated Olga shrieked at the sight of Whisky’s face in the rear window – outside – seeming to vault the car. Poor old Whisky had been jolted from her slumbers as Ken and Olga had stumbled into the car and set off oblivious to their pet being chained to the bumper. Whisky had had to run faster than ever before. The horror dawned on Ken as he stopped the car nearly causing Whisky to vault the car like a long jumper– to see his beloved, faithful hound wheezing and with paws on fire. Small wonder that Whisky walked to the club from thereon.
Muzz
Muzz, on the other hand, was an all together different dog. The Tattersalls, who generously donated three sons to the club, also adopted Muzz and the family’s life changed forever. Muzz was a scruffy, stray dog of no fixed breed or origin and always seeming to get into fights and he never seemed to win. Nobody quite knows how Muzz arrived at Villas, but the day he did, battered and bloodied from another losing battle, he entered the hearts of the Tattersalls and the rest of us.
Muzz was also a bit of a lad though and, strangely, nearly caused me a severe clip around the ear one day from our President at the time, Ernest “Play good cricket you win, play rubbish you lose” Jackson. Ernest was a legend and had been at the club when Haighy and Browny were in short pants; he was a figure that, as young lads, we all genuinely respected so you listened when he spoke, even though invariably he always began with “play good…”. In fact that’s all he ever said.
This fine day Ernest was dishing out a deserved rollicking to some of us aspiring juniors, for assaulting a wooden bench with the heavy roller; it was almost bonfire night and we needed some kindling. Then we noticed Muzz in the background, mounting his latest flame – a golden Labrador that the old dog had been pursuing for some time. Soon Muzz was giving it what for and Ernest’s attempts to make us see reason were falling on deaf ears; widening grins and stupid looks spread across us like a plague. As Ernest unstrapped his belt to give us all a good seeing to, we could not stop falling about as Muzz howled in agony.
Muzz was taking his job seriously but on went dear old Ernest as Muzz, attempting to dismount, became stuck rear end to rear end with his conquest. Amidst louder and louder howls…from the dogs and us…Ernest rattled on as a lady from an adjoining house flew out with a bucket of water. Still Muzz was stuck to his lady and I am sure it put many of us off the thought of nookie for many more years.
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